Together, Comprehension
by Belle of Books
Summary: A series of oneshots focusing on Tony and his relationships with the people around him. Chapter One: Ziva


"Together, Comprehension"

And so he sat. Head bowed and arms straight in front of him, his hands loosely encircling a glass of brandy. He didn't normally drink the hard alcohol but tonight was a strange exception. He felt as if the world was crashing upon his shoulders; he felt as if he was Atlas but without the strength to hold up the weight. His eyes, tired, rimmed, and drooping, felt full of coarse sand as he slowly blinked back the filmy haze that appeared over his irises. Exhaustion filled his every limb as he stared blankly toward the wall.

It had been a hard day. A long, hard, exhausting, emotional, draining day. It didn't help that he had pretended not to be exhausted, emotional, or drained. Two little girls, the daughters of a captain, had been taken captive as revenge for the captain's actions while on tour in the Persian Gulf. They had followed every lead; every call, untraceable. They had strained their bodies and emotions and minds, all of them pretending this was like every other case, pretending there was not two young, beating, pulsing hearts on the line. Every relative had been called, every friend contacted. And nothing. And then, in a moment, they thought that they had a lead. And they went, the four of them.

But they had been too late. Too damn late.

Gibbs had gone crazy after that, a quiet steady rage, but crazy nonetheless.

So they caught the bastard. The distorted man who thought that a single mistake by his commanding officer warranted the death of his two young, beautiful daughters.

It seemed to affect Gibbs the most. But it didn't. They were all silent. Ducky was strangely silent when he performed the wretched autopsy that shouldn't have occurred in the first place; Jimmy, for once, made no inappropriate jokes; McGee was caught in his own mind, with his phone in his hand, his own baby sister's number on the screen, his thumb on the dial button. Abby stared at the screen, heart aching, slow, wet tears descending down her kind cheek; Ziva was silent as well. Her mind away, flying on the wings of the past, down into dark, dusty alleys, with pools of crimson liquid and a still, all too silent body.

And he, for one of the rare occasions, had no quotes or jokes or words. His own foreboding, darkening thoughts brimming in his mind. No movie, no quote could express the hopelessness the sight of two, still warm, still and silent bodies creates in the mind. The questions, the never-ceasing, never-ending questions. What if we. . .? Could we. . .? Had we. . . ? Over and over again. Every action, every decision, every comment made, they all replayed over and over again through the brain. Constant replay.

He gave a low, throaty moan and lowered his chin to his chest.

He had kept a quiet watch over everyone. He had gone out to get food for lunches and dinners to make sure that McGee, Jimmy, Abby, and Ziva ate. In the midst of his hopelessness, his desire to provide and protect for the ones he felt were under his care was at its highest. The unconscious denial of eating his own food until all the others were well on their way of eating their own food.

He had kept a watch over Gibbs, too. Made sure that he did not go off the high dive into the pool of utter rage and insanity. These cases were always the worst. For all of them. And for the time they were in the office, he kept the operation moving. He fed information to Gibbs and took the brunt of Gibb's displeasure when they failed to produce what he wanted the most. Hope. Damn damn hope.

It shouldn't be too hard to give, he thought in his mind. Damn hope. Something so darn simple. Something everyone. Everyone! just wants to hear. Everything is gonna be okay. Everything is gonna be alright. We'll get there in time. They'll be perfectly all right. Other people got hope all the time. 'Cause they were the ones who gave it. They were the ones who told others what they needed and wanted most to hear. And no one could ever tell it to each other. 'Cause it wasn't true. They always tried their best, he knew. It just was that their best wasn't always good enough, he was assured. If it was, he wouldn't be at the bar, sitting, thinking, and drinking.

He knew that he should go home. He would have to go back to the orange walls, the rectangle of desks, the gloomy attempt of encouragement and of "next time" tomorrow. Another day, another time. Another murder, another villain. And they, the good guys, would defeat the bad guys, because of course they almost always do (the keyword being "almost") and tomorrow night, or the next, he would be in the exact same spot, the exact same position, with the exact same drink. Because there, he was Tony DiNozzo. The guy who had seen way too much crap in life and still went back. Because every day he went and saved lives, lives of people who would never see his face, never thank him, and never know his name. He wore no uniform, no obvious badge of courage or honor. Many people who knew him would say he didn't even have courage or honor. But here… _here_. Here, he could put aside the fact that it was he trying to keep all together, to pull everyone back in together. Here, his own problems he could dump. Here, his amber liquid could tell him a superficial reassurance that sometime everything could be all right. _Would_ be all right.

He could see the bartender watch him with a careful eye, used to his often-depressed moods. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the strange look of relief appear on the face of the man. He heard the quiet steps behind him and bowed his head once again; he knew. Soon Ziva's lithe body climbed onto the stool next to him. She motioned for a drink and then sat, in silence. He rolled his head. He started drumming on the counter. It was obvious that she had something that she wanted to say. He just wanted her to say it and get it over with.

His pain was his pain. He would not share it. Wasn't even sure if he wanted to share it. He was so used to holding inside his deepest pain. He shared the superficial, annoying pain of paper cuts and break ups, but, when push came to shove, he didn't share. It didn't fit the mask he'd developed over the past years as an agent.

They sat in silence, palpable tension in the air. She looked straight ahead, slowly nursing the drink in her hands. Quietly, "how many?"

"Just this." Tony twirled the golden brown liquid. "I don't need…" he broke off.

She looked over at Tony with deep, steady, dark eyes and rested her head against her open palm, supported by the counter. He met her gaze for a moment before breaking away and staring once again down at the circling liquid.

"What do you need?"

He heard the quiet question. Didn't respond.

"Tony. What do you need?"

He stared ahead at the wall, brow furrowing and eyes darkening.

"What do you—"

"Stop," he said with quiet, passionate intensity. "Just stop."

Ziva sat back in her chair, her eyes still viewing him with the same deep purpose.

"Then what, Tony? Then what?"

"Nothing," he whispered, bringing the glass to his chapped lips and gulping down a mouthful of alcohol.

She reached her tanned hand across the counter and rested it on the top of the glass, her fingers wrapping down on top of his hand. She regarded him with tender interest.

"You never break, Tony. You never break. We never see you fall down. You pretend and we believe you and it is only after you are gone that we see that you could not possibly be as 'fine' as you say that you are."

He gave short, bitter smile.

She grabbed his arm.

"That is not amusing, Tony. We are partners, Tony. We are a team. And yet, you do not trust us enough to let us in, to show us that you too are human and a man."

He stared straight ahead.

"You are not infallible, Tony."

He turned quickly, pulling his hand out from under hers. "You don't think that I don't know that? You don't think that I don't know who and what I am? I'm a man. I'm a man who's damn sick of this mess, of this life." He turned away for a moment, breathing in a deep, shaking breath. He turned back. "I know damn well what I am, who I am. And I know that every once in a while, I just get sick, you know? I get sick of being put together all the darn time and being unemotional and I bottle it up and then I get sick. Because I do my job and I save people and I get bastards and I like that. . . but then, every once and a while, I see the crap that they all are and I get sick of pretending that everything's okay and that it's gonna be okay." Tony took another breath and took another swallow of liquid.

Ziva had removed her hand from the cover of the glass and wrapped her fingers around her own. "We all feel that way Tony."

"I know that!" Tony burst quietly and insistently. "Don't you see? I _know_ that. I'm there when it happens; I see when it happens. But it doesn't change the fact that that's how I feel. And there's not a thing anyone can do about it."

Ziva looked up at the steady, deep golden light above them. She looked at her partner with sad eyes, seeing Tony without a mask. "I see. . .I see."

They sat in silence.

Tony wanted to leave. He wanted to walk out into the dark, interminable darkness. He wanted to leave the emotion, the struggle, the battle behind.

They sat in silence.

Ziva said not a word. She only sat, keeping him from falling into the deep pit of despair and heartbreak that was normally inevitable.

They sat in the noise of all the unsaid.

And somehow, in the midst of all that they did not say, they understood each other better than they had in months. There were no "other" people. There were two partners, two friends, with a mutual compassion and a mutual grief.

They sat, drinking their drinks until only a rim of liquid remained in the bottom.

Tony looked over at the sad, beautiful face of the woman next to him. "I…" he tried to begin, Ziva turning her head toward him. "I… I don't need much. You understand? Not really. I don't need to talk it out. I just… I just…"

Ziva cracked a smile. "For someone who talks for the whole day, you sometimes do not have the words to say things that are really important."

Tony gave a half-smile, looking at her with an unfamiliar look of a plead, begging her to somehow… somehow…

Ziva gave a small shake of her head. "You just need to know someone is there."

"That's all," he whispered.

Ziva moved to the ground from the barstool and stretched her arms.

Tony grabbed his keys and stood next to her.

He looked down and their eyes met. No words were exchanged. She knew the price, the desperation she knew would come only through extreme trial. Their eyes met. He didn't say thank you. She did not say you are welcome.

"Tony…" A question.

"I'll see you tomorrow." A promise.

She knew that they would not speak about it. She would worry, watch from a distance, as tomorrow _he_ would be back. The unbreakable character-almost caricature of a man. Maybe their eyes would meet across the room, a reassurance in his eyes. He would never address her presence and she would never insult him by addressing his moment of need.

And tomorrow, tomorrow they would go back. To the same process, the same life. But maybe in the elevator they would stand a few inches closer, and maybe, just maybe, tomorrow night or the night after that would have two people sitting silently on the barstools in a bar.

_I'm normally a fan of not doing much of an author's note but I'd like to take a moment of your time and explain this story. I really have become interested in the dynamics between the characters and the idea of Tony as, perhaps, one of the show's "true protagonists." As such, I want to write a series of oneshots that examine the relationship of Tony with the people around him. I'm not planning on bashing any of the characters; I simply have a desire to portray them as I see them to be. I'd love to hear what people think, whether it is something that you would want to read, etc. And any helpful criticism. Disclaimer, of course, that I do not actually own this, etc, etc. And, fyi, if you read romance into any of this, that's your prerogative. It's not my intention to write romance since that's not what the show's been giving us. For me, I love the relationships, especially the platonic ones because of the depth behind them. Anyway, that's what's going on. I'd love to hear your opinions or suggestions with what you might like to happen!_


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